


The Perfect Storm

by Lochinvar



Series: The Perfect Storm [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Afterlife, Attempt at Humor, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Sexual Assault, BAMF Dean Winchester, BAMF Sam Winchester, Beer, Bircher Muesli, Bourbon - Freeform, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, British Men of Letters, Canon Era, Caring Dean Winchester, Caring Sam Winchester, Case Fic, Colorado, Comfort Food, Curtain Fic, Diners, Driver Dean, F/M, Falling In Love, Family, Fluff and Smut, Forests, Frank Sinatra - Freeform, Fuzzy Logic, Gay Sex, Great Breakfasts, Grigori Blade, Happy Ending, Heaven, Impala Feels, John Legend, Joni Mitchell, Kurdish Knife, Love songs, M/M, Men of Letters, Men of Letters Bunker, Mild Angst, Morning After, Morning Cuddles, Mountains, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Oral Sex, POV Outsider, POV Sam Winchester, POV Third Person, Pie, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Pre-Stanford, Reapers, Requited Love, Romance, Sad Dean Winchester, Sad Sam, Salida, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Sam's Bowie Knife, Sappy, Shower Sex, Sibling Incest, Slice of Life, Snow and Ice, Song Lyrics, Songfic, Soulless Sam Winchester, Stanford Era, Storms, Veils Rip from Dean's Eyes, Wendigo, White Witches, Yeti - Freeform, dean's colt, food coma, magical baby, turning point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-21 14:15:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9552452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lochinvar/pseuds/Lochinvar
Summary: A perfect storm: a critical and rare state of affairs, arising from convergence of unpredictable factors in a once in a lifetime balance.Sam and Dean enjoyed a summer of love before Stanford and avoided the topic for 14 years after they reunited. An encounter with a potentially deadly storm on the way to derailing a Wendigo cycle of kidnap/murder, a perfect breakfast, the brothers being wonderful, and an accidental sound track may reunite the soulmates.Bobby, Ash, Charlie, Chuck, and a "scythe" of reapers make brief appearances. Sam and Dean overthink. Baby messes with gravity.Credit to Linden for collective noun for reapersBased on events that your writer survived: ice storms and sappy romance. And a car that saved my life more than once. Salida, Colorado and those mountain roads and passes are real, as is the Arkansas River, the hatchery, and Denver's brewpubs. And Salida, as of this writing, has at least two fine distilleries.Fans of the British Men of Letters might want to skip beginning of Chapter Two due to specific reference to their failed approach to research.





	1. Not Touching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morgan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgan/gifts).



> This is dedicated to Morgan, to thank one of the best best writers I have encountered in fan fiction and in Real Life, and to blatantly promote the fact that s/he moved dozens of pieces to A03 and lost all of the commentary that people shared on the old site. So go forth and read!!! And comment! Also, to honor a shared love of hazel nuts. An inspiration and a challenge! 
> 
> The Mature Rating is for fun times in Chapters Five and Six, otherwise would be a Vanilla Gen with a couple of teen moments.
> 
> Chapter Four has a non-graphic mention of a potential date rape. Don't worry; Sam intervenes. Maybe would flick a teen switch on, if there was such a thing.
> 
> Canon violence involving ganking wendigos.
> 
> Two deaths at the end, but reasonable end of life and not violent.
> 
> I own nothing; rely on the talent and kindness of strangers. No Beta; all mistakes are mine to own and bear.
> 
> This fic is finished...will polish and post chapters every couple of days.

Colorado - 2019

Sam and Dean Winchester have survived the depths of Hell and the intercession of demons and angels. They have seen and experienced things that most humans, except for poets and mystics, cannot imagine. They are sophisticated in the lore of a hundred mythological belief systems, can decipher a verse written in the tongue of Angels, and chant words that have not been spoken by a living human being for 10,000 years. They had pancakes with God Almighty, for Chuck’s sake.

However, the brothers are, by breeding and environment, (nature and nurture) culturally conservative Midwesterners. Straight arrows. Should be wearing “I Like Ike” buttons. Dress out of 1930s L. L. Bean catalogs. Once they decide they like something, are comfortable with something, are used to something, be it Cobb salads or bacon cheeseburgers, they are set for life.

The canon myth was that Sammy will want to talk about _Important Things,_ but the truth is he lies. A lot. Dean? Silence is a given. Also, he lies. A lot. Which had been great for fueling Chuck’s angst-filled plotlines, but not so hot for addressing the scarier, important issues of Sex and Love

There had been, in the misty past, a period that lasted for the length of the summer before Sam left for Stanford, when long-simmering hormones boiled over–catalyzed by the realization of Sam’s imminent departure–and the result was something usually described as _experimentation._ But, as regarding most things Winchester, the boys were observant and fast learners, and they realized that _This Is Not What People Do,_ so they stopped. And followed up with the Winchester code of _Never Talking About It, Nope._

Consequently, when they reunited the first time in Palo Alto (home to some pretty fine coffeehouses and bakeries), and every time after, they laid in rooms, together, separate and silent, as if in parallel dimensions, on broken down beds shoved up against faux wood headboards, which wobbled when the occupants snore. On sofa beds that creaked and poked into their backs–a maze of metal struts and braces through thin mattresses.  
  
The boys did not “touch” after Stanford, except for the hugs acknowledging events like _Returning from Hell, Returning from Purgatory, Surviving, Ending the God Trials, Dying, Dying Again, Yet Again, Returning from Saving the World_ , et al.  
  
Sometimes, Dean would brush Sam’s bangs back from his forehead if the motel room was hot or after getting up the second time, in the middle of the night, to bring his younger brother a glass of water, painkillers, and antibiotics, if his Sam was recovering from a monster attack–maybe hovering the back of his hand just over the surface of a stitched-up wound to check for the heat of an incipient infection. Barely brushing over the stitches. Or a hand on an arm to steady himself, looking over his brother’s shoulder at a laptop screen. Or to reach over and steal a slice of toast. Or grab the TV remote.

Or Sam would sit on the edge of his older brother’s memory foam bed, his long, elegant fingers soothing Dean’s trembling hand with gentle pressure, and talk him through and out of a nightmare, using lucid dreaming techniques to walk his brother into a brightly lit exit towards safety and peace. Waking him slowly so as not to become a victim of the snap of switchblade Hunter reflexes, maybe fetching his Dean a glass of water, reassuring him with his voice. Maybe laying next to him with the intention of tacit comfort, matching his breaths, purposefully slowing and deepening the rhythms, until oblivious sleep returned.  
  
It was a game they played in motels as well, Dean pretending to be too tired to notice they had rearranged themselves on twin beds pushed together. For the sake of convenience, they told each other.

(Editor’s note: Talk about being expert at mythologies…)

And eventually Dean would be splayed over his brother’s chest, listening to his heartbeat, and Sam would wake in the morning, pretending that cuddles were accidents, left over from their snuggly childhood. Except now it was Sam who held his brother close.

But not touching. _Not touching._

Went on for years. Not unnoticed by friends and enemies and observers in Heaven and Hell. But rarely, if ever, was the subtext brought up, because the response was the usual Teflon-grade frustrating reaction: Sam dropping 100 IQ points and squinting adorably as if he was your basic issue, confused puppy, trying to figure out for the first time what “sit” means, or Dean, silently frowning, pissy and smite-y.

This is the man who murdered Death. You really think that the scythe just slipped, guys? Mostly, folks backed off from the look in his eye.

Neither brother would speak to you for, like, weeks. Or Dean would gank you, if you were a reckless monster, poking a stick at the deadly, flannel-wearing bear. 

Confused and angry are two well-honed deflections.  



	2. Rocky Mountain High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Sam survive a stormy trip with the help of an old friend and celebrate with bourbon and pie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Alert: Opens with a few paragraphs of Sam-style nerdification. Can be skipped.

The brothers were using 21st century research and data management tools to anticipate periodic supernatural outbreaks by finding patterns in past murders and disappearances, in this case Wendigos in the forests of the northern-tier states and Canada.

Before they left the Bunker, that’s how Sam described their current case when he called Bobby to let him know where they would be. Bobby grunted, but was pleased and a little bit proud. Sam had taken the corporate Big Data models that the British Men of Letters doted on and modified their scope and scale. He, Ash, and Charlie added anecdotal data: eyewitness accounts from Hunter journals, interviews with angels, and local environmental and geological information.

What made their system more accurate was that they did not aggregate the common sense out of the statistics. For example, the British MOL model did not recognize the differences between forests with the same kind of trees in different climate zones, different altitudes, and different amounts of rainfall. So the ACS (Ash, Charlie, Sam) system paid attention to the fact that moss-covered lodgepole pines in British Columbia gave off a different vibe than the same beetle-damaged pines in Colorado. Local specifics needed to be factored into cases differently.

Better efficiency and effectiveness, but less collateral damage because warding and spells could pinpoint threats. Fewer innocents hurt. The best of abstract theories and tried-and-true kicking the tires. They even included fields to allow fuzzy logic to use numerical ratings of the feelings and instincts of experienced hunters and white witches.

\-----

The math drew them into Colorado’s high country. They left the welcoming arms of Denver’s iconic brewpubs and headed down US 285 despite a questionable forecast. Over Kenosha Pass, easy peasy, and south.

And then that questionable forecast became a certainty. A fog bank poured down on them, fueled by the supernatural powers of the high peaks to the northwest.

Too late for chains, so Dean tensed his shoulders and Sam did that latent demon blood power thingie, his eyes glowing, staring a hole through the windshield, the two Hunters trusting that Baby’s 3,500+ pounds of Detroit steel would anchor her to Earth while they navigated the few remaining miles to Salida. (An advantage, they figured, until Newton noticed from his deluxe suite in Heaven and kicked in one of his Laws. You know the ones that aren’t safe to ignore on mountain passes?)

The curtain of fog parted. A juggernaut of freezing rain hit the highway and froze instantly. With surgical precision, Dean tapped the gas and brake pedals, feather light, and nudged the steering wheel by millimeters. To no effect. The Impala, whose roar was muffled by the storm, had lost traction. She kept moving forward, but from the air she would have looked like a sewing needle, suspended by surface tension on a water pond, scribing arcs as she almost spun and almost turned in one direction and then another.

She bounced off of signposts and guardrails and pieces of broken mountain and then rallied to continue in the general direction of the mountain town, which was shrouded by the storm.

Dean kept Baby in first gear, hoping to govern her speed if her tires regained traction. He peered into the swirling darkness, barely able to see beyond her front bumper. Sam braced himself against the dashboard, curled over in the too-small interior. Without thinking, the men swayed in unison, willing the stumbling car to stay on the road, holding their breaths as if they were fathoms underwater, surrounded by great creatures that never came up for light or air.

In between breaths, Dean cursed. And prayed. Sam chanted spells. And Baby listened. She couldn’t overcome the mechanics of the tsunami of wet sleet pouring sideways and straight down over the frozen highway, but she knew a thing or two about manipulating the gravitational constant. She kept pulling herself forward, tracking the highway beneath her and returning time and time again to the center of the lane, her invisible claws digging into the grid of magnetic ley lines that covered the sacred wilderness.

(Like all good cars, much like all good dogs, she would do her best for the humans she loved. The fact that she had been in the Hunter life for decades, with the blood and muck of a thousand supernatural wet kills filtering into her metallic DNA and her surviving in the blast radii of twice that many spells, had changed her into???? But that is for another story.)

Dean commented later that he didn’t know Sam knew so much Hebrew. Sam replied that he didn’t; was channeling the Holy Word, but not sure from where or from whom. Days later, they would send prayers of thanks to Castiel. The next time the angel came by the Bunker he claimed he had not intervened and then scolded the boys regarding why had they not stopped, like sensible people would have in Fairplay, when the Colorado State Patrol told everyone to get off the roads and stay home.

\-----

Eventually, the Impala and her Hunters slid to a soft landing against an ancient concrete bumper in the parking lot next to the Catch-Em-Inn, an antique but serviceable motel. The exterior walls were painted an ugly yellow, crowned by a giant 50s-era neon sign of a leaping trout flashing in the night.

The building was a few hundred yards below the south bank of the Arkansas River and not far from the Mt. Shavano Fish Hatchery.

The men stared ahead, somewhat out of breath. A scythe of reapers, which had been pacing the Impala like dolphins in the wake of a pirate ship, landed in front of the car, and stood, looking, as usual, like a convening of 1950s undertakers. They glared in unison and vanished.

“Close call,” said Dean.

Dean moved Baby around the corner so that she was nestled next to a sturdy brick wall, protected from blowing debris and safe from fishtailing truck trailers. He patted her dashboard and promised her a custom wash and wax job the next warm, clear day.

\-----

Blessed “Vacancy” and “Guest Registration” signs shone in the front windows of the hole-in-the wall bar and all-night diner; they illuminated one end of the single row of motel rooms like a lighthouse.

The brothers decided to count on the magical powers of Colorado’s blue skies and the accompanying sunshine, which, at their ski resort altitude, would open up Monarch Pass after the storm. They could get to Montrose in a few hours, arriving while it was light if they left by noon the first day the road was clear. That would give them a week to track, trap, and take out the resident Wendigo before it began kidnapping a new generation of campers and forest rangers in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Sam thought the canyon was the prettiest place in a state known for its natural beauty. Dean thought it was scary as Hell. Dean should know. Both brothers were right.

_Several canyons of the American West are longer and some are deeper, but none combines the depth, sheerness, narrowness, darkness, and dread of the Black Canyon._

\-----

They agreed that their first task would be to indulge in a jubilatory midnight nosh, the culinary equivalent of one of their manly hugs.

_(We are alive! Again! Still! Just, but better than nothing!)_

The brothers ordered black coffee to stay awake while they were eating. Now that the danger was over, exhaustion was hitting them in waves.

For Dean, celebration meant breakfast burritos stuffed with steak and green chile and scrambled eggs, with red salsa and sour cream on the side, and beans cooked with seared pork fat, and a small hill of hash browns, dosed with ketchup and an artisan habanero sauce, and two slices of mixed berry pie a la mode, which compelled the sated Hunter to ask the cook, a 60-year-old retired long haul trucker and U.S. Navy veteran, for his hand in marriage.

“I’ll put you on the list,” the cook, said, referencing a favorite Tom Selleck TV movie. Didn’t smile, didn’t miss a beat.

Sam was thrilled when he found Bircher muesli on the menu, yet another gift of the Swiss to world culture–a gourmet granola with rolled oats and seeds and fruits and grains and berries and hazelnuts, soaked in clabbered whole milk.

And the brothers washed down their respective meals with toasts of Colorado Bourbon from one of the town’s distilleries.

Best breakfast ever.

Dean and Sam checked in with the motel manager/diner cashier and braved the storm once again, extracting their duffel bags from the Impala. They left behind the bulk of their secret stash of guns, knives, and magical weaponry.

Nothing short of a North American Yeti could breech the storm, and those magnificent solitary creatures, which could take out a Kodiak, were scattered thinly up past the state line into Wyoming and Montana. They were harmless to almost all humans; the region had the largest elk herds in the world, keeping the great solitary beasts well fed.

Fish and Wildlife in five states and the Canadian provinces knew, and local law enforcement knew, and the cryptozoologists at the Colorado State University vet grad school knew, and of course, the Hunting community and the Men of Letters knew that the best policy was to leave the mythical creatures alone. And not talk about them to the general public. Plausible deniability.

Yetis, it seemed, do not care for intrusive tourists from the flatlands.

Anyway, Baby was safe, as were the contents of her trunk, hidden below the fake bottom.

\-----

The small, clean motel room was warmer than outside, but still too cold, requiring a minimum of sweat pants and t-shirts and socks for sleeping. The brothers took turns changing in the little bathroom, the kind with the built-in radiant heater. Decided to save showers for the morning. A few minutes of arranging extra quilts on the king bed and salting the windows and door, and they were out cold moments after their heads hit their respective pillows.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my wingman Lumen for his thoughts on Big Data and fuzzy logic.
> 
> Have been over US 285 many times; one of the prettiest roads in our state. But, nearly died during an ice storm to rival what the boys made it through. I think the description is accurate, and I am sure there were reapers. And old Newton having his way.
> 
> As far as the Impala becoming sentient, I have had a piece in the works for months called When Baby Wakes Up, so this is a little preview. Our lives (Lumen and I) were saved that evening by a 1964 Red VW Beetle, by the name of Puppy. I can recall at least four times that the stalwart car saved my life in impossible traffic situations, always in blizzards, with ice and sleet, while newer cars were comatose on the side of the road.
> 
> Stopped ignoring state police weather alerts ten years ago.
> 
> Sam and I agree that the Black Canyon is the most beautiful place in Colorado.
> 
> And am pretty sure the mountain ranges to the north and northwest of our story are haunted.


	3. The Soundtrack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The brothers wake up, and music happens. A short chapter with lyrics. If you don't know them all by heart, I don't know you.

Three hours later…

One moment the brothers were fast asleep, each cocooned in a separate nest of sheets and blankets. The storm played a steady lullaby of the wind strumming a slushy mix of rain and ice against the sound-dampening storm windows, like the beat of a muted snare drum. Maybe a tad upset that the boys escaped, thanks to Baby’s loyalty and her ability to twiddle with time and space.

Then, from out of the opaque curtain of sleet, a couple of snow plows with a trailing entourage of salt and sand trucks, yellow warning lights blinking and hi-tech emergency radios blaring, pulled into the motel parking lot at the far side of the row of rooms next to the diner where Sam and Dean had checked in.

Only place in the parking lot big enough to hold all of the equipment. The drivers and spotters yelled at each other good-naturedly, cursing about the bitter cold and wind and treacherous sleet almost instantly turning to ice–worse than a snow blizzard, dontcha know–and headed into the diner.  
  
“Awake?” Sam stage-whispered.

The sound of Dean’s stuttered inhale when the trucks rumbled by crunching over frozen gravel woke Sam up as much as the noise from the trucks. Attuned as he was to the air his brother breathed. They had reached for their weapons–gun and knife–even before they were fully conscious.  
  
It would take time for their Hunter nerves to quiet down. Sam automatically added an hour to their wake-up time.

Dean grunted. Some nights, when rest was not an option and cable and broadcast television reception were nonexistent, he would turn on the cheap radio that sat in every motel room in the country and find a local station playing something to lull them to sleep again.  
  
Sam liked all-night talk shows: the ones about alien abduction and cities at the bottom of the ocean. And Yetis, for that matter.

If skywave propagation reflecting off the ionosphere delivered an overseas broadcast, Dean claimed the soporific drone of BBC announcers was better than opiates for knocking him out after a bruising round with a cranky ghost or demon. 

Dean reached over next to his side of the bed and fumbled with the dial for a couple of minutes. Static whined and screeched as he tweaked through AM and FM frequencies. He figured the antique radio antenna would probably pick up Denver’s clear channel behemoth 850 KOA, blasting across 38 states.

Maybe it was the storm (or Fate, they decided later), but the first thing Dean found was a syndicated oldies show, with a signal almost too decrepit to be heard above the wind’s rattle. Old love songs their grandparents would have listened to. No irony and lots of horns in the arrangements, smoky and blue.

They listened to Frank Sinatra tell them to love someone _All The Way._

\----- 

When somebody loves you

It's no good unless he loves you, all the way

Happy to be near you

When you need someone to cheer you, all the way

 

Taller than the tallest tree is

That's how it's got to feel

Deeper than the deep blue sea is

That's how deep it goes, if it's real

 

When somebody needs you

It's no good unless he needs you, all the way

Through the good or lean years

And for all the in between years, come what may

 

Who know where the road will lead us

Only a fool would say

But if you'll let me love you

It's for sure I'm gonna love you, all the way, all the way

\----- 

Frank was good. Really good. Dean was quiet. No snide comments.

At first, Sam thought his brother had fallen asleep again, but his eyes were open, and he could seen Dean lick his lips.

“Hey, you okay?” Sam asked.

Sam could feel the bed shift as Dean leaned away again, looking for a different channel. He found a Texas college station dj discussing women in music…and then came Joni Mitchell with _All I Want._

\----- 

I am on a lonely road and

I am traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling

Looking for something, what can it be

 

Oh I hate you some, I hate you some, I love you some

Oh I love you when I forget about me

I wanna be strong I wanna laugh along

I wanna belong to the living

Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive

I want to wreck my stockings in some jukebox dive

Do you want, do you want, do you wanna dance with me baby

Do you wanna take a chance on

Maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby, well come on

 

All I really really want is our love to do

Is to bring out the best in me and in you too

All I really really want our love to do

Is to bring out the best in me and in you

 

I wanna talk to you, I wanna shampoo you

I wanna renew you again and again

Applause, applause, life is our cause

When I think of your kisses my mind see-saws

Do you see, do you see, do you see how you hurt me baby

So I hurt you too

Then we both get so blue

 

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling

Looking for the key to set me free

Oh the jealousy

The greed is the unraveling it's the unraveling

And it undoes all the joy that could be

I wanna fun, I wanna shine like the sun

I wanna be the one that you want to see

I wanna knit you a sweater

Wanna write you a love letter

I wanna make you feel better,  I wanna

Make you feel free

Hm hm hm, hm

Wanna make you feel all free

All I wanna make you feel free

\-----

Sam was surprised when Dean let the song play until the end. It was from Joni’s _Blue_ album, one of Sam’s guilty, romantic pleasures. Which meant a ripe target for Dean’s monomaniacal obsession with getting his baby brother to listen to the right kind of music according to the Big Brother Gospel of Music. But, again, Dean was silent. Sam could hear the gears turning in his brother’s head, ratcheting slowly.

The dj started talking about zebra mussels in Texas lakes…and Dean leaned over once more…found a safe, middle-of-the-road, Top 40s hits frequency, playing in a loop – all the songs that would be elevator music 20 years in the future – and, because Fate had a sense of humor…John Legend. Of course. _All Of Me._

\-----

What would I do without your smart mouth?

Drawing me in, and you kicking me out

You've got my head spinning, no kidding, I can't pin you down

What's going on in that beautiful mind

I'm on your magical mystery ride

And I'm so dizzy, don't know what hit me, but I'll be alright

My head's under water

But I'm breathing fine

You're crazy and I'm out of my mind

 

'Cause all of me

Loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me

I'll give my all to you

You're my end and my beginning

Even when I lose I'm winning

'Cause I give you all of me

And you give me all of you, oh oh

 

How many times do I have to tell you

Even when you're crying you're beautiful too

The world is beating you down, I'm around through every mood

You're my downfall, you're my muse

My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues

I can't stop singing, it's ringing, in my head for you

My head's under water

But I'm breathing fine

You're crazy and I'm out of my mind

 

'Cause all of me

Loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me

I'll give my all to you

You're my end and my beginning

Even when I lose I'm winning

 

'Cause I give you all of me

And you give me all of you, oh oh

Give me all of you

Cards on the table, we're both showing hearts

Risking it all, though it's hard

 

'Cause all of me

Loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me

I'll give my all to you

You're my end and my beginning

Even when I lose I'm winning

 

'Cause I give you all of me

And you give me all of you

I give you all of me

And you give me all of you, oh oh

 

Next up: Brotherly Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the Way was an award-winning bestseller in 1957 and one of Frank Sinatra's greatest hits.
> 
> All I Want is the opening track of Joni Mitchell's iconic Blue album (1971).
> 
> All of Me is considered John Legend's biggest hit and topped the charts around the world in 2013-2014.
> 
> Of course, these are copyrighted works, and I am posting the lyrics to pay homage and to perhaps give a hint of what Dean might be thinking, and feeling. 
> 
> \-----
> 
> Play these songs one after the other for the one and only you love, if you are so lucky, because these songs are not for casual hook-ups, with respect to the pleasures of casual hook-ups. Which Dean is going to find out.
> 
> Kind of a scary ride. He and Sam might have died, again. At least a scythe of Reapers thought so. And then they didn't, thanks mostly to Baby. So, Sam was safe. And then, a great meal with great pie. And great adult beverages. And a warm bed. Maybe feeling a little vulnerable.
> 
> The Perfect Storm.


	4. Home Is Where You Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean is kind. Sam impresses his classmates and imparts a lesson about life to a star athlete. Sam remembers that he is in love. Dean is searching. Still "G" rated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger alert: Canon-appropriate violence against someone who probably deserved more.

Dean reached over one more time and turned the radio off. Sam assumed that Dean was signaling that he was ready to go back to sleep. Sam stared at the ceiling,

The near-death experience in the storm, complete with a multi-reaper escort, left the younger Hunter feeling vulnerable.

The lyrics of three of the best love songs of the last 60 years had filled him with nostalgia for those short months with Jess and Amelia and how being in love made him feel. Not like that handful of one-night stands with maybe a couple of dozen women, over how many years?

The music triggered a longing, buried blood-deep, for something that Sam had not allowed himself to think about consciously for years. Was that how he felt about Dean, that last summer until he ran away to build a normal life?

\------

Sam was remembering his college days. Before Jess he had a specific type: smart-mouthed jocks with dark gold hair and green eyes, not an uncommon subspecies in California.

Sam stopped looking for a replacement for Dean following a notorious frat party. The dude was a lacrosse player, a midfielder from a rich family. Didn’t need an athletic scholarship to study and play. After a quick and not unsatisfying hook-up in someone’s bedroom, Sam caught up with him, thirty minutes later, holding a red plastic cup to the pretty lips of a girl who was already half-drunk. The arm that was holding her up, her back against his chest, was the one with his hand down her pants. She was pushing, weakly, against his arms and hands, saying “no”, muffled by the cup and the music and noise in the room.

Sam was not jealous; just thought “no” meant “no”. He suggested that the middy leave the girl alone. Had to shout to be heard.

A generation of vampires, werewolves, and other creatures of the night could have told the frat dude that when a Winchester says, “Stop!” he, or she, means “Stop!”

Those sweet puppy eyes lulled the lacrosse dude into a false sense of security, and he grinned at Sam and kept on keeping on, until Sam lifted the girl away from him effortless and placed her to the side, then tossed him through the front door and beyond the porch onto bruising pavement, stunning bystanders into silence and benching the boy with a broken ankle for a season.

Then, Sam half-carried the girl home and delivered her safe and sound to the front door of her dorm, becoming a class legend and earning a lifetime ban from the fraternity house.

No more substitutes after that. He had cared for Jess because of who she was, not because she reminded him of anyone. And she was good for him.

(He didn’t count the times as Soulless Sam; he was glad that his mostly lost and broken memories of what happened felt like someone else’s mediocre porn/horror/action movie, starring B-list American actors speaking over Italian and German and French subtitles, to be exported to audiences in third-world countries.)

\-----

Sam thought about Dean. Some people thought his Dean celebrated only with liquor and pie and the warm, anonymous body in the night. They would be wrong, regardless of what Chuck’s stories reported. Canon isn’t always canon.

That night, Sam had watched as his brother bought a late-night breakfast, comfort food for a single mom and her two little girls, seven and eight: pancakes and scrambled eggs and juice and toast and of course, pie. Hot chocolate for the girls; tea for the mom.

The family was driving up to Denver from Alamosa for the final job interview, which would clinch her entry-level management position at a high-tech start-up and drive a claiming stake into a new life. They were stuck there for the night because of the weather: She was a golden-skinned beauty with thick ebony hair, freshly cut for the meeting. A bit chunky, dressed in ski clothing from ten seasons back. The girls looked exactly like her, wearing leggings and down coats two sizes too big.  
  
Dean had gone back to the cash register while they were eating and paid for their room as well.

Sam could tell that the mom thought it was a transaction, a bill to be settled. And as handsome as his brother was, she had that look that Sam knew meant that the evening would be something to endure, and it wasn’t the first time. When she told Dean that she had to put the kids to bed first, but they were good girls, and it would be all right, and did he have his own room, and then she stared at Sam with frightened eyes...Dean leaned down, kissed her on the cheek, and told her that all he wanted was for her to get a good night’s sleep, her and the girls, and not to worry. Told her to wait in the morning for firsthand confirmation from the state police that the highways were clear before she got on the road again.  
  
“See, they will come to a diner like this for breakfast.”

The eavesdropping desk clerk nodded and mouthed the words "six a.m".

“Six a.m.,” said Dean, “And you come in and ask them in person, and they will call their buddies and get the right information faster than the news services and the online reports. They will keep you safe.”

Then he went back to the cashier and paid for their breakfasts as well.

Once again, Sam was struck by how easily young Dean could have grown to be a cruel man, bitter from their father’s multiple betrayals and serial abandonments and the burdens he placed on the shoulder of his older boy. But, instead, that little kid turned into Dean.

His brother had returned from the cashier to sit with Sam. He kept an eye on the young family while he finished his second piece of pie and then escorted them outside to their room. He came right back, with the sleet melting in his hair. He wiped his face dry with a pile of paper napkins and shook out his hair like a cheerful pup, spraying his brother in the process and laughing.  
  
But, Sam was smiling at him. No bitch face. Couldn’t stop smiling.

Dean had been, like, What dude? and Let’s have another shot.

\-----

Now, Sam lay in the motel, staring at the ceiling, thinking about his brother’s trademark generosity and protective nature. And remembered why it was he was in love with his brother.

Wait.

Okay, he said it, if only in his head. No surprise.

He turned to look at his brother, who was either asleep or lost in his own world.

Dean was kind and good and loyal and brave and smart. And goofy and careless and childish and impulsive and stubborn. He was the one Righteous Man, or one of many, who had saved the world from destruction for millennia, depending on which version of biblical scholarship you believed. His very existence was enough, according to some accounts, to keep the Blue Ball turning.

He was the hero who never gave up. Or, as Dean preferred, Batman.

So, Sam’s middle-of-a-stormy-night feelings had not been triggered solely by green eyes and how the older Hunter looked in a long-sleeve t-shirt and ancient sweat pants. (Yes, we all figured out a while back that Sam reads fan fiction.) A pure and true love.

Then, Sam’s innate honesty tripped him up like size 13 work boots sticking out in the movie theater aisle of his Big Brain.

Sam’s yearnings were not just because of Dean’s tender heart and his superhero, pulling the amazing rabbit out of the invisible hat, feats of courage. His brother’s Boy Wonder looks were part of the package.  
  
Was it a blessing or a curse that the person he loved also was the best-looking man in the territory? Who was maybe two feet away on a bed. Dressed in cheap, worn to see-through Hunter version of pajamas.

In a room with a lock on the door.

They might as well have been a thousand miles apart.

Wow, Sam thought, it was turning out to be one of _those_ nights.

His lips moved silently. _I love Dean. I am in love with Dean._ Tears pricked his eyes. He had never stopped loving him, even when running to Stanford, even afterwards, through a decade and more of deception and the fallout of very bad choices.

Meanwhile, he had no idea what Dean was thinking. All Sam could tell was that his brother was awake.

Then Dean’s side of the bed exploded. He was kicking his mess of blankets aside and startling Sam out of his nostalgic drift.

“Hell, Dean, not funny, dude.”

Dean scooted closer, and, in a single, quick roll, was on top of Sam. He yanked one of his discarded motel blankets, plush and thick, over them both, draping it across his shoulders like a superhero cape.

Always the gentleman, Dean was balanced on his elbows just above Sam’s broad shoulders, so that his upper body was slightly elevated. He was looking down on his younger brother.

\-----

Sam froze, staring at Dean’s face, which floated above him like a personal moon. The lights from the trucks and motel and diner were softened by the pummeling storm, illuminating the room, and his brother’s face, with a pulsing glow. He realized immediately that this was not Dean in prank mode.

He felt as if they were two sailors, alone in a small boat, rocking in an endless sea.

Dean looked confused and anxious, searching Sam’s face for something. Sam did not know what, or why. Considering Dean’s behavior, demonic possession was the younger hunter’s first thought. But their tattoos should have taken care of that worry years before.

“Christo,” Sam murmured, almost as an endearment.

Dean did not flinch.

Then, he wondered if Dean were in some dreamland anteroom, cursed or poisoned, maybe thinking Sam was a roadhouse succubus. Maybe, Dean had fallen asleep and woken up almost instantly from a sudden-onset nightmare.

Maybe, he thought it was Sam who was possessed.

Sam didn’t flinch either, or push him off. Not yet.

“Dean, what the fuck?”

Truthfully, the solid weight of his older brother felt good. Sam’s cocoon of blankets was melting around his knees, pushed by the angle of Dean’ body; the men now were separated only by those soft layers of the third-hand sweat pants and long-sleeved t-shirts.

Sam stared with fresh eyes at his older brother’s face. Dean was about 40 years old. Right? Sam was not sure.

The jawline was still firm, but he was thinner than he was at 22. The skin on his cheeks clung to the bones, and Sam captured a glimpse of what that old man was going to look like in 30 years. The dark circles painted under the green eyes had become permanent, even after a long shower and a good night’s sleep.

Dean’s hair was mussed. Sam could not tell if those were stray gold hairs, or silver, catching at the light.

The carefree boy, smug and funny and on top of his game, playing at the world’s best job, had been replaced, molecule by molecule, swapped out for a middle-aged man with a tired mouth pulled down at the edges. Who did not smile much.

Tonight, with the mother and her girls and the three-star diner meal, was an exception.

His brother deserved better. More.

Then, Sam heard, actually, felt Dean sigh. It was a deep inhale and exhale, the kind that signals the inevitable resolution to a complex problem. Resignation and acceptance. End stages of grief.

Dean was giving up…what?

“Dean, say something,” said Sam.

\-----

Next chapter: Where the story earns its “M” rating. There be shenanigans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More than once on the road, I have asked the person waiting on me for advice about weather and directions. And more than once, law enforcement has moseyed over to my table with their cups of coffee, sat down, and drawn me maps on the back of napkins, called in for the right information, and offered to escort me down the side of the mountain. Have been warned about fog banks, black ice, flooded roads, closed interstates, and reasonable detours - even after the invention of electricity and cell phones. 
> 
> And, more than once, it seemed everyone in the diner was either related to law enforcement, or their sister drove a salt truck, or their next-door neighbor was an ambulance driver, and they would be on their cell phones, calling for information, and making sure I had what I needed.
> 
> On one trip, when a questionable forecast had moved on the dial to Defcon 4, I counted eight different people, included a local sheriff's deputy, stopping by to make sure that me and my wingman would be okay.
> 
> So, let's all be careful out there. And let's stay nice.


	5. Home Is Where You End Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex. 
> 
> 1\. Focus.  
> 2\. Take your time.  
> 3\. Take turns.

The way Dean put it, months later, was that a wall came down. And then a whole building.

“What was the keystone?” Sam asked.

“Wasn’t one thing,” Dean mumbled into Sam’s hair. “Wasn’t just one thing.”

\-----

Dean didn’t speak.

Instead, he let himself press down on Sam. He wiggled slightly to align himself with his younger brother’s taller body; their sweat pants and t-shirts shifted apart under his weight. The smooth head of his semi-erect cock moved above the loose elastic waistband of his pants and tucked up between the two men, pushing against his brother’s bare belly. He could feel Sam’s member lengthening between his legs.

Dean moved his arms and framed Sam’s face with his hands, his eyes still searching, still puzzled.

‘This…good?” were the first words he spoke.

Sam swallowed and nodded. Still waiting. Had no idea what was going to happen next. His own cock continued to thicken in response to hot, smooth skin and the lingering smell of after-supper toothpaste and Dean’s old-fashioned shaving cream, left over from a morning that felt days, not hours, behind them. The scent and flavor of Dean filled his senses, and he inhaled, mouth open, to capture more.

Dean sighed again, but smiled.

It wasn’t the flirty smile he had used on the cook or the single mom with the golden skin. It was a kind smile, a smile of gratitude, the one Sam sometimes would see at the end of a case, when they stood back, letting the people they saved take the center stage. Watching families hug at the back door of an ambulance, a mom weeping over a living, happy child who thought the whole, horrible event was maybe just a game, a mistake, a curiosity, a nightmare that fades in time, forgotten forever.

Or while sitting in the Impala at dusk, hiding in deepening shadows in an alley overlooking one of ten thousand Main Streets. Watching folks running last-minute errands before dinnertime, arms filled with packages and bags, saying hello to old friends, stopping to pet someone’s lop-eared pit bull mix and listen to the story, once again, about how they found Freddy on the side of the road, abandoned in a blizzard, and they brought him home and nursed him back to health, and it was touch-and-go for a week or so, because Dave didn’t really like dogs, but now, the man loves him like a fourth kid, and maybe we rescued him, but Freddy rescued us as well.

Dean would look at Sam when they heard the word “rescue” and smile that smile, the one Sam loved the best.

The first brush of Dean’s lips was pure and sweet, shy and certain. This was the inevitable springtime. Rolling down the slope of a greening hill or making that perfect dive into a sandy-bottomed lake, clear as glass.

When we all thought we were immortal and had all the time in the world.

Dean took his time.

For Sam, it was the most natural thing in the world, so different from the desperate infrared heat of that summer before he sat on a bus, crying silently, on the way to a new life. Dean held his face and did little more than bob his head, touching their lips together, evaluating distance and pressure, like skipping a new stone across a lake and seeing the ripples grow and spread and die, so you do it again, and again. Maybe a little farther and faster each time. Ten skips this time.

Look, Sammy, you can do it.

Dean, as usual, showing him how.

Sam lifted his hands and mirrored Dean’s caresses, cradling his brother’s face in return. He moved and felt their cocks touch. Then, he let go and pushed his hands under the covers.

“Cold,” said Dean, and his gentle smile broadened into one of his patented grins.

This time, it was Sam who rolled and shifted his body. Even though he was underneath 175 pounds of half-dressed, distracting, soon-to-be-nude, prime Hunter, he manhandled his brother with his big hands and long arms into a better position–a little better for kissing if he raised his head up a little and much better to rock against the overlapping drag of velvet and satin. He felt Dean’s heartbeat. He felt the first wet leaks, just a little messy, and Sam, finally, was smiling back into his brother’s mouth.

\-----

If you’ve ever tried to make love in a cold room and not lose your momentum, as the one blanket slips, you know what I mean. Even in the heat of engagement, drafts are a distraction.

So, you call a timeout, and it says something about the two of you that you laugh and giggle in a mature fashion (right), and huff, and make it a game, trying to tangle up each other’s legs in a stray sheet and take the advantage while you can.

Then, you call another timeout, because you are not 18 and 22 anymore. And, you deal with the fact that wilting cocks can leak. A lot. And then, like studio musicians coming back from a midnight supper break, you pick up the rhythms, paying attention to the other instruments and the choices the other players are making, the patterns, maybe different this time.

The two of you will have built a warm space, a kid’s fortress, encased under a pile of blankets, tucked in at the corners. Blindly, you pull away from his hands, and you bend under the covers and shift and lower your mouth to collar bones, to nipples and below, hunting for those places where you elicit a shiver or a gasp, which will guide you to his cock, warm and heavy in your mouth.

You end up kneeling between his legs in that dimly lit cave of soft fabric, and you anchor him in your hands with your lips and tongue. You close your eyes, so you can focus. You hold him steady, and when he tries to move, you pin him in place, so you can kiss and lick and suck to your heart’s content.

You pull off for a minute and rest with him wet against your cheek, and then start again. You aren’t thinking about the goal line, you are thinking about him.

He tastes of salt and bitter like rare herbs. You think of alchemy and the potions in the books in the Bunker and Bobby’s library. The power they hold. The power he holds over you.

You are a little light-headed because you forget to breath. Have to remind yourself to inhale and exhale through your nose. His musk and the faintest trace of soap trigger memories of _safe_ and _happy_ and _home._

He stretches and bends and shifts and grabs your head and begins to stammer; he begs you and an obscure pantheon of gods at the same time. Your hands and mouth encourage him; you want to protect him. Want him to have no doubts that you love him. He breaks apart and comes quietly, in little gasps. You are still hot and hard. It hurts, a little, but all you can care about it is that the best person you know, the one you have wanted for most of your life, is happy.

He pulls you up, kisses the flavor of his cum from your mouth. And smiles, delighted.

“My turn,” he says, with pride, as if touching you is a privilege he earned.

Some truth there.


	6. The Canyon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They kill the Wendigo, return to Montrose, and make a decision. 
> 
> And, yes, it is a happily ever after.

The storm ended the next day. The brothers stayed in the room for two more, until the road over Monarch and into Montrose was dry for safe travel. At least, that was what they told the desk clerk. Would walk over to the diner for brunch and supper, shuffling against each other, tripping each other up, like preteen best friends. Already had their favorite booth. Tipped extravagantly. The cook brought them their own pot of coffee, freshly brewed, and left it at the table.

Sam ate pie at every meal, fed to him in dripping forkfuls by his giddy brother, who managed, accidentally, to land one, big smear on his cheek every meal. Dean was always smiling; looked more like that brash, happy kid Sam thought he had lost decades ago.

Only three hours to Montrose. They stopped at the top of Monarch Pass and enjoyed the view. Sam stood behind Dean with his arms wrapped around his chest. They drove into town and booked a room for a week in a pretty good chain motel. One king. The room was warm and stocked with plenty of blankets and towels. No need to share, but they did.

By tacit agreement, they carbed up on pasta at a local quasi-Italian eatery, a small step up from the mac-and-cheese and canned ravioli of their childhood. Comfort food, washed down with beer. Went to sleep early.

Got up before dawn. Drove out to tiny Cimarron and parked Baby in a gas station garage with a Hunter-wise mechanic, paid with five twenties and left the number of Bobby’s third-best cell phone, in case they never returned, and walked into the park and down into the canyon, dressed in their warmest layers.

Fire was the reliable problem-solver when the problem was an intelligent, cannibalistic, semi-immortal humanoid, but a flame-thrower and resulting blaze would bring attention. So, they were packing the Kurdish knife, an Angel blade, and Claire Novak’s Grigori sword. The latter was on sort of permanent loan, promised to be returned upon her successful graduation from college, just months away.

They snuck by the park personnel and hiked into the depths, following an old map surveyed by 19th century British Men of Letters, whose love of the American West led them to explore possible regions of supernatural activity. They never found the Wendigo, and, because of the timing of their visit, luckily the Wendigo didn’t find them.

Based on previous reports, Sam and Dean were able to figure out where the creature was hiding. Dean had broken the code on Rock-Paper-Scissors, so Sam called a coin toss. He won, or lost, depending on your perspective, and was the bait. They set up a minimal camp, took turns napping during the day, and with dusk, lit a small fire that kept the creature at bay, until Dean wielded the Grigori sword with ease.

Dean always hated when Sam was put in harm’s way. Made him grumpy and overprotective afterwards.

They chopped up the carcass and buried the pieces deep under a river rock cairn in a hidden cave. Tiptoed around a hibernating black bear. By the time they made their way back into Cimarron, it was 72 hours from when they first walked into the canyon.

Hardly saw any wildlife. It was that time of the year, just before spring exploded with color and song, but Sam thought that the awakening of the Wendigo had driven prey and predator down stream and to higher ground. Even the birds were afraid. Once the monster’s smell had been washed away by the next storm, the animals would return.

No sleep except for the naps, living on high-calorie energy bars and drinking melted snow when the bottles they brought ran dry.

Dean’s lips were blue, and Sam’s teeth were chattering. The walk back to the garage warmed them up, some. Neither Hunter said a word.

Sam was worried. Would their new way of dealing hold beyond the case? Had the storm shifted their world permanently? Or would Dean stop smiling when they got back to Montrose and chalk the sex up to another bout of experimentation, sparked by the storm, excellent bourbon, and a sappy soundtrack?

They paid an extra hundred and claimed Baby. The mechanic was a good kid and deserved a special thank-you, so they let him hold and wield the Kurdish knife, which cut through the head of a discarded sledgehammer like butter. He, in turn, filled a bag with convenience store major food groups: jerky and Slim Jims®, spicy tortilla chips, and frozen bagel pizzas and jars of cheese dip to heat up in their room’s microwave, licorice and roasted cashews, pretzels, and, some ought-to-be-illegal-it’s-so-good locally sourced double-dark chocolate black walnut fudge. He then handed over a couple of six packs of Coors®. They said their good-byes and drove back to Montrose to their room in the pretty good chain motel.

Dean jacked up the heat, and the brothers started stripping off their layers of wool and down. The older Hunter strolled over to the open bathroom door in his sleek black boxers and grinned when he remembered the spacious shower stall.

“Hey, Sammy,” he said, using the same smile that sank a thousand ships.

Sam was sitting on the bed, having advanced only as far as removing his shoes and socks. He was just about to sink back into the pillow-top mattress from exhaustion. But, he looked over his shoulder in time to see Dean kick off his underwear and stand, nonchalantly, full Monty, one hand on the shower door, challenging with the other, palm up, a la The Matrix.

“Bring it on, little brother, bring it on.”

Sam stood up and walked slowly towards Dean, dropping clothes as he went. Dean leaned into the stall and began fiddling with the faucets, then turned to take his now naked brother’s hand and lead him under the hot spray.

The stall was cramped for two tall, broad-shouldered men, the spray head not high enough, the water temperature and pressure wavered sufficiently to be annoying, the washcloths were small and scratchy, the only soap was a small, cheap bar of something pink and floral, and the little bottles of shampoo and conditioner were…little. And, as everyone knows, shower sex is complicated.

Nonetheless, Dean and Sam emerged laughing so hard that they could barely walk. Dean and Sam, with big grins, grabbing towels and making the drying off of the other brother a full-contact sport–no holds barred. It is reported that manly tickling ensued.

They ended swallowed up in that sweet pillow top, sandwiched under the covers, whispering mouth to ear, just like they did when they were boys and John snored in the next bed, reverting to force-feeding each other jerky and weird combinations of licorice and greasy sausage and pretzels, and spilling hot cheese and crumbling chips onto the pillowcases. Had to get up twice to shake the sheets clean, then scurry back under the covers.

The satisfaction from those slippery shower hand jobs sort of wore off. Sam initiated a kiss, which tilted the world. Left Dean dizzy and Sam wanting more.

Dean dumped the contents of his duffel bag on the floor with the same sense of urgency with which he hunted for hex bags  
and gleefully found an unopened bottle of cherry-flavored lube. Sam pulled and kicked everything off the bed except the bottom sheet. Sam positioned the weaponry, Dean’s Colt and Sam’s enchanted Bowie–a birthday gift from Dean and Castiel after the Treaty of 2018 with the British Men of Letters was signed–just under either side of the bed. He hurried to the bathroom and grabbed a folded stack of hand towels from the well-stocked linen closet and tossed them on his nightstand.

Then, taking a relatively clean pillow and tucking it behind his head, Sam lay, full length, jaybird naked, smiling up at his brother, who had been waving the bottle of lube in triumph.

Dean noticed Sam and stopped. He smiled that kind and grateful smile, but then it faded.

“You are so above my pay grade…Samuel,” he said, staring at his beautiful brother, smart and kind. The best. Dean’s demons began to rise, the sadness, the losses, the weight of mistakes and lies and missed opportunities.

Sam knew what to do. Bravely, he smiled and held out his arms in invitation, hands palms up.

Dean shook his head, but the smile came back. He tossed the bottle of lube, which Sam caught one-handed without thinking.

“De?” Sam asked.

“Sammy,” Dean answered, as he climbed back onto the bed and settled into his lover’s arms.

\-----

They died together, in their little house at the edge of town in Salida, Colorado, forty years later. Sam’s heart was failing, and Dean was prepared, and when the end was upon them, Dean drank the bottle of blue liquid, the one Rowena had given him, decades before. As he told her at the time, just in case. And he climbed into their small bed and wrapped his arms around his Sammy and they kissed for the last time. Perfect timing.

Their bodies were wrapped in one shroud, and their mixed ashes spread over the rushing waters of the Black Canyon. There was a public ceremony at the Montrose Public Library attended by Men of Letters and Hunters and friendly monsters and some people whose children and siblings and parents and grandparents and greatgrands had been saved by the brothers.

Their Colorado neighbors came, the ones who met them only after retirement and who liked to brag a bit about knowing the two old men, who had become local celebrities because they volunteered for just about every civic duty, from the library board to volunteer fire department shifts. Held hands when they walked in town.

Those souls were so entwined that no force could separate them. Newton attempted and surrendered to love, as did a battalion of celestial physicists. The Reapers were secretly happy.

Sam and Dean woke up together next to a mountain lake with a cabin, in the endless summer before Stanford, 18 and 22, but now they had all the time they could ever want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Already planned for my ashes to be spread at The Black Canyon. Might have to sneak them in. Volunteers?
> 
> The boys would have had to have their wake at the Montrose Library: bigger meeting rooms.
> 
> Like I said, this piece is mostly autobiographical.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to get the dates right; this would be happening in the 14th/15th season of the show, if my basic addition is correct. Sort of late winter/early spring, but the truth is that it snows 12 months a year in the high country. Be prepared when you visit.
> 
> Grateful for kudos and comments - thank you!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Gambler](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11886588) by [TheGreenestGreenToEverGreen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreenestGreenToEverGreen/pseuds/TheGreenestGreenToEverGreen)




End file.
